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Icons of the absence of God / Does Rothko offer consolation to a godless world?

Before Christmas, one of my lecturers gave me a flyer for an arts and spirituality symposium that’s happening this Saturday (the 24th Jan) at Kings Collage. The symposium coincides with the Rothko exhibition currently underway at the Tate Modern, and will critically review the interpretations of his works and how they speak to out social and cultural context. I’m absolutely gutted cause I can’t go due to unforseen events, but I’m hoping that a good bunch of Christian artists will. I think it’s really important for us, as Christian artists to understand modern art, which has shaped our culture, so that we are more able to engage with it, and challenge it with a Christian world view. After all, hope in Jesus Christ is far more jolly than nihilism. I don’t think it’s gonna be from a Christian perspective, but it’s chaired by Ben Quash who’s the Professor of Christianity and the Arts at KCL, so he should at the very least have a vague interest in Christianity, and to be honest, it’s just as important to learn this stuff from a non-christian point of view as it is from a Christian one.

And so, the details are thus.

The symposium will run from 10am to 5pm, will take place at Kings Collage, Strand, London WC2, and tickets will cost you £25 (£20 cons & ACE members). You can send cheques made payable to ACE Trust to ACE, 83 London Wall, London EC2M 5ND. Or you can email them at E_projects@acetrust.org (although i’m not entirely confident that that’s an underscore as the bottom of my flyer’s been cut off) or, for that personal touch you can even phone them on 020 7374 0600.

The speakers will be :

Aaron Rosen – Finding Rothkowitz: The Jewish Rothko

Jonathan Harris – Mark Rothko’s good paintings about nothing

Daniel Glaser – Can neurobiology tell you how you feel about a picture?

George Pattison – After an end: unsaying painting.

If you do make it there, do tell us how it is, whether it was groundbreaking and changed your life or just £25 to get pins and needles.